Japanese J3 League football team FC Imabari has released the latest plans and images for its new Satoyama Stadium on a website that has been designed and developed specially for the project.
FC Imabari currently plays at the 5,000-capacity Arigato Service Yume Stadium, which only meets the requirement for the third-tier J3 League and the club has long stated that it will require a bigger stadium should it aim for promotion to higher tiers of the J-League pyramid. The new stadium is designed by Azusa Sekkei.
The club’s current home stadium is located on top of a hill and the new Satoyama Stadium will be built on land underneath and adjacent to it. The club has hinted that its current home could become the team’s new training ground once the new stadium is completed and opened.
The club said on the website that construction work will begin in November 2021. The initial number of seats will be 6,000 only but unlike its current home, the new stadium is designed with future expansion plans in mind and the club envisions that it will eventually have 15,000 seats in total to meet the J-League’s top-flight license criteria.
FC Imabari stated on the website that the new stadium is scheduled to open in February or March 2023, in time for the new season to kick off. The club is now planning a financing scheme so that both individual and corporate supporters can make donations to participate and contribute to the construction cost.
FC Imabari is owned by Takeshi Okada, who guided Japan to the 1998 and 2010 FIFA World Cups, the only head coach in the history of Japanese football to lead the national team twice at the showpiece event.
Image: FC Imabari/Azusa Sekkei
Article provided by The Stadium Hub
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